College Level FIRST

[Jeremiah Johnson]

Originally Posted by Brandon Holley

Cory is 100% correct here. I agree having a college level FIRST would just let college kids relive their glory days.

However, I must say that FIRST drops the ball when it comes to college students. Does something magical happen that summer between senior year of high school and freshman year of college? OF COURSE NOT! You don't come back after that summer with the knowledge and experience of an adult engineer. I know my team (125) has exactly 1 adult mentor, and he is our faculty advisor from Northeastern university. Other than that its all college kids. We're not always sure what we're doing, and we're not always sure that we're doing the right thing and being ideal role models. College kids have a much different FIRST experience than any other level of FIRST participant.

I think college kids should start to look upward. There are A LOT of other competitions where its perfectly fine for a college level student to be the "driver" or participant, and this doesn't mean you need to stop mentoring FIRST high schoolers.

When did anyone mention college students stop mentoring high school students? I believe it was stated that it would be nice to not have the two competitions coincide with FRC, only compliment. I certainly wouldn't stop mentoring 648... however, I am going to be stepping away from 648 more and moving into the FVC scene more...

On another note: Some people don't look forward to dealing with immature high school students that don't hardly listen to people of authority and/or higher experience levels. I know this is my major drawback of being a mentor of 648. However, it doesn't really deter me too much because I get more out of mentoring than I do not mentoring.. if that makes any sense at all.


EDIT: After reading Brandon's post a second time, I could have been totally mistaken. Please, tell me if I am.